Citizen angels

San Francisco Chronicle features copy editor Lisa Hix was scheduled to be on vacation this week to visit her brother and niece in Greenville, Texas. Instead, Lisa drove to Houston to see if she could help the refugees at the Astrodome. Lisa says there wasn’t that much to do for a volunteer, so she went to Dallas to see what how she could be of use for refugees there. Here’s Lisa’s third post, from Dallas:

Lisa Hix (via cameraphone)

Thursday, I learned the true nature of the Donations Center at the Reunion Arena parking lot. It wasn’t affiliated with the Red Cross as I had thought. (The arena itself says “No Donations Accepted” on all its marquees.)

Here’s the amazing part: This Donations Center sprang out of the compassion of a handful of regular people. They didn’t have a name at first; now they go by Citizen’s Coalition for Relief & Assistance. They’re lead by a hypnotherapist named Kat Truitt.

What can regular people get accomplished? Well, so far, they provided clothes and shoes for all shapes and sizes; they got a Wal-Mart to bring in pallets and pallets of soap, toothbrushes, Always pads, wash clothes and so on; they were able to hand out diapers and formula for babies; they set up a first aid table; they hosted a daily barbecue with burgers and hotdogs; they researched all the information evacuees would need on FEMA, disaster assistance and housing; they collected the names of people will to donate rooms and “adopt” evacuees; they got ice and water donated each day; they talked to Big Bruce’s Barbecue and other restaurants about bring in food.

It’s truly astounding. I looked around thinking how this was all the work of a disorganized group of volunteers, just a group of people with really big hearts, and I wanted to cry. It’s hard to believe.

It seems the government machine is moving slowly in Dallas. There are procedures to follow and so on. But the citizens and churches have stepped in to fill the gap. The Donations Center has struggled to stay open for political reasons that are beyond me. The organizers say they’ve gotten flak from the office of Mayor Laura Miller. And so the center will close down and clear out on Sunday.

After my last post, I read this article, and I started to question some of the rumors of violence that are going around. Are these stories spreading racism? But I thought, you know, these stories come from the evacuees themselves. These are the voices of underdogs that are often disregarded or not taken seriously. These are voices that deserve to be heard. If it turns out that all the stories are not true, which I doubt that it would, I think they’re important anyway, because they show how exposed and frightened the evacuees feel sleeping in a stadium with tens of thousands of other people.

Lisa Hix (via cameraphone)

James

I arrived at the Dallas Donations Center around 3 p.m. There wasn’t much work for me to do, so I sat down and talked to James Rudolph Jr., who is an evacuee who is working the volunteer sign-up table.

James was at the Superdome for six days. He, from what I can tell, is a reasonable and honest person. He told me all the rumors are true. The power went out Monday night; the water went out Tuesday night. He said the National Guard was there the whole time, but they didn’t seem to do much to help. The stench from the bathrooms was unbearable. James told me it was true that a young girl was raped and that the rapist was beaten by a crowd. He said some families broke into the kitchens upstairs to try to cook food. He said he saw one guy commit suicide by jumping from a balcony.

For James, the worst part of the whole experience was waiting outside for 22 hours to get past the barricade and onto a bus. The evacuees crowded elbow-to-elbow in the grueling heat, with only MREs to eat and water as hot as the weather. He said two people died of heatstroke in that line. “If you were a man, you took a water bottle and took it around the corner to pee. I just prayed for the ladies, because I don’t know what they did. They told us we could only take one bag with us on the bus, so there was literally a pile of trash this high” — he gestures at about five feet tall — “on either side of us, and it smelled like pee. And people would sit down and sleep on trash that smelled like pee. There was nothing else to do.

“Once I got past the barricade, I freaked out, I didn’t know what to do. I had to sit down for an hour before I could get on a bus,” James said. “I will never forget that experience. It’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever been through in my life.”

James is among those who believe that the levee was blown up to save more expensive real estate. How much would a levee busting sound like an explosion? I don’t know. He said the people who looted guns and started shooting at everyone, evacuees and rescuers, “They were mad. They were mad at white people.”

He’s staying at the Decker Detention Center, a prison, which is providing some refugees shelter, and he’s happy to be there. There’s a bed, a roof over his head, a warm meal, hot and cold running water. When his bus crossed the Texas state line, it pulled into a rest area, where local community members were providing food and medical care. “I am so blessed to be in Texas. No one can ever put down Texas in front of me again. I won’t have it.”

Thursday, he went to a job fair and got three leads on possible work. He says, “It’s hard to tell people, but I need money to get a job. I hate to say it because I feel like I’m panhandling, but it’s true. People have been great here. I had a couple take me to dinner for some Cajun cookin’. I was so excited.”

James explained that the Donations Center didn’t have enough big clothes or underwear. He told me about a man who couldn’t find any pants that fit him. He had to cover his lower half with a blanket. “People from Lousiana ain’t skinny ol’ people. We like to eat. We like Cajun food.”

Besides big clothes, strollers were in short supply. A woman with a tiny baby in her arms came up to the table and asked James for a stroller. He explained that he had four strollers, but a waiting list that was 10 people deep. Diapers, too, get snatched up, and so they have to be regulated, or one family will make off with three or four bags. “Mind you, they will get used. But that means another family gets none.”

Back at the hygiene table, I see Jeanette, Frances and Jolene from the other day. They’re down to toothbrushes and travel soap, which the evacuees are still eager to have. Jeanette, who just got her masters degree in broadcast journalism, explained that she went by several hairdressers in her neighborhood to ask them to donate black hair supplies. She hoped to have something by Friday.

I was curious about the volunteer situation at the Reunion Arena itself, so I headed that direction. I met a 59-year-old evacuee near the shoes. She told me in a thick Cajun accent, “We drank water that had oil this thick. I was vomiting green vomit for days from drinking that oily water. But it was all we had.”

She had been rescued from her home, along with her elderly mother and son, by a bus with only her sandals, the dress on her back and her cane with her papers tucked inside. “We didn’t know if they were going to save us or kill us. They brought us here.” She lost everything she owned, her china, her dining set, her bedroom set, etc.

She said the dress she had on was from the Donations Center. “Thank you for everything. You guys are our guardian angels, I swear.”

I see the Dallas Parks and Recreation has set up a kid’s basketball goal, a basketball court and tetherball outside the Reunion Arena. As I got closer, I saw an Evacuees Only sign and decided to go back.

I worked the registration table for a while. The center was taking names and addresses to turn into the Red Cross Katrina register. The notebook was thick with sheets and sheets of names.

Linda Aranda and her two children have been running the registration all week. For the Linda, providing the evacuees food, clothes, baby supplies and first aid it’s enough. She can’t rest until she’s found every evacuee she encounters a decent place to stay. She has a wealth of information about where to go and who to talk to for disaster aid.

Linda can’t stand that the Donations Center is closing Sunday. “Where are these people going to go? I feel so bad for them. My daughter, she said to me, ‘Mama, I know this is going to sound bad, but this mostly affected minorities.’ I’ve been teaching them to treat everyone with equal respect. How am I supposed to teach them equality when they can see the discrepancies here?”

I have to add here: The guys from Big Bruce’s Bar-B-Que are amazing. They brought in a trailer Thursday and Friday, and grilled burgers nonstop from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in that smoky, hot truck. When I waited in line, it was 45 minute wait.

Linda told me Chris would be there any minute to take people to hotels. It took me a long time to understand what was going on. Chris arrived, and sat next to me at the guest registration table. He asked every evacuee who walked up to the table, “Where are you staying tonight? Do you want to spend two weeks in a hotel? Do you have your Louisiana ID?” At first, they were suspicious of him.

Around 7 p.m., we piled a group of people into a charter bus Chris had rented. I found out later he’s a music producer and he has a charity organization that finds people housing after disasters like Sept. 11. He has pull with some high-end downtown hotels, and can talk them into donating rooms.

The bus was greeted by a doorman at the Adam’s Marks Hotel in Deep Ellum. Chris took the families — a young couple, an older couple, and two adults and two toddlers who were representing a family of 16 — up to the registration desk and secured them a room (or three, if needed). We went upstairs to look at the rooms, heaven after sleeping in arenas — fresh-made beds, cleans towels, private showers. The young couple ran into us in the hall, their eyes were glowing. “It’s sooo nice.” “Let’s go find the pool!” Chris announced cheerfully.

He explained that he would get food delivered twice a day. He pointed out the Plazas of the Americas down the street, where there’s a fast-food court, as well as the hottest underground hip-hop club. He said, “Let’s all go to the movies or something fun on Saturday.” He explained would soon provide them with a free apartment for six months. “And we’re trying to get you a discount on furniture.”

Lisa Hix (via cameraphone)

Back on the bus, all the evacuees were beaming at him, overwhelmed with love and gratitude. He’s been doing this all week, from the crack of dawn til 7 p.m. “I love helping people out … I’m going to take tomorrow off. No, I can’t. I have a family of 20 I have to place.”

The Donations Center is a testament to the power of the human spirit. They only have two days left. If you want to help out, contact Kat Truitt at (214) 363-3683 or ms9Lives@juno.com.